THE TRANSLATIONS OF SEAMUS HEANEY

edited by Marco Sonzogni

Seamus Heaney not only translated classic works of Latin and Old English - such as his prize-winning 1999 masterpiece, Beowulf - but also poems from a great number of ancient and modern European languages, not least translations from the Old, Middle and Modern Irish of his homeland. The breadth and depth in evidence here is extraordinary — from monastic hymns and prayers, to the civic and familial tragedies of Sophocles and Kochanowski; from Virgil and Dante’s living underworld to the stark landscapes of Sweeney’s Ireland.

As editor, Marco Songzogni frames the translations with the poet’s own writings on his works. Collectively these bring us closer to an understanding of the genius for interpretation and transformation that distinguished Heaney as one of the great poet-translators of all time.

‘A huge book, an immense book. Such adventure and variety, such industry, such subjugation of self.’ Michael Hofmann, TLS